Northridge quake: 20 years on, we must do more: Editorial

As this editorial was being written, the daytime skies above Southern California were eerily dark with the miles-long plume of smoke from a raging wildfire in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Ash was failing like a snow flurry from hell, from Glendora to Long Beach.

But other than the occasional glance at the smoke scar obscuring the heavens, Southern Californians went upon their daily business Thursday. Fires, even large, showy ones like the Colby fire, are not so big a deal here; it’s just part of what it means to live in one of the best places on Earth. The trade-offs for glorious weather and spectacular mountains are traffic, smog, crowds and — for those fortunate enough to live in the hills — the possibility that a wildfire might burn down your house. It’s just part of the SoCal deal.

So are earthquakes, both the frequent small heart-jolters such as the swarm we’ve experienced this week — on Wednesday a magnitude 4.4 north of Fontana and a 3.8 in Orange County, and a 3.2 on Thursday again near Fontana — to the (thankfully) occasional large temblor that rips apart our complacency, not to mention our lives and homes.

Twenty years ago today Southern Californians experienced the latter. The Northridge earthquake was a 6.7 shaker so violent it threw Californians from the coast to the desert out of their beds and into a nightmare.

It was the most expensive U.S. earthquake on record, though not the deadliest. Despite the widespread damage, only 57 people died, most of them in the collapsed apartment buildings in the San Fernando Valley. And though it caused widespread structural damage and knocked down freeway overpasses and bridges, it was nothing as dramatic as the pancaking of an Oakland freeway or a piece of the Bay Bridge collapsing in 1989.

For the most part, we did smart things since then. We updated building codes and our buildings were rebuilt stronger, our existing buildings retrofitted. “Soft story” buildings — those that have first floors that are essentially hollow for parking and where the majority of deaths and damage occurred in both Northridge and Loma Prieta five years earlier — weren’t replaced with similarly dangerous structures.

But we can do better.

There are still too many vulnerable buildings, still too many soft story buildings, still too many ways we aren’t adequately prepared.

An editorial last year noted that SoCal’s own earthquake celebrity — USGS seismologist Lucy Jones — warned that we might well survive an earthquake only to die in the aftermath. Our buildings might be stronger than ever, but our water, gas and communications systems are still vulnerable. In a large quake, it’s conceivable that there may be few casualties from falling debris, but mass casualties from a lack of clean drinking water.

But what could really make the difference across the state would be for the Legislature to start funding the development of an earthquake early warning system that was established in a bill adopted last year. We have done a lot, but there’s still more to do when you live in earthquake country.